Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Lexicon]

Random movie thought: I have mixed feelings about the upcoming remake of The Stand.

I think Alexander Skarsgård is an interesting casting choice for Randall Flagg. Might actually work. Even if he doesn’t, he’s at least a pleasure to look at, I suppose.

Not sure about Whoopi Goldberg as Mother Abigail. She’s just so distinctly herself that I see most of her characters as, “Whoopi as ________,” as opposed to simply, “________.”

We’ll see.

 

[SD45T-2]

Random movie thought: I have mixed feelings about the upcoming remake of The Stand.

I think Alexander Skarsgård is an interesting casting choice for Randall Flagg. Might actually work. Even if he doesn’t, he’s at least a pleasure to look at, I suppose.

Well he was great as Brad "Iceman" Colbert in Generation Kill. IIRC even the real Brad Colbert thought so.

 

[Tomb1]

3 From Hell was no Devil's Rejects...it ain't the same without Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig ran rings around Bill Moseley)

 

[Jaguar]

.
Excerpt from Andrew Shepherd's speech in The American President:

You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.

Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.




Does it get any more relevant than that?

 

[Jaguar]

.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I’m tired of the trope or gimmick of people wielding two swords. Game of Thrones even changed Arthur Dayne from wielding a greatsword to dual longswords. It’s pretty impractical and you don’t see a lot of real life historical examples. The only time it is practical is when one blade is shorter, like dagger length. However, Hollywood likes to show us people wielding same length swords.

Double bladed lightsabers are also kinda lame. Doesn’t stop them and dual wielded from looking cool, I guess

 

[Stigmata]

I’m tired of the trope or gimmick of people wielding two swords. Game of Thrones even changed Arthur Dayne from wielding a greatsword to dual longswords. It’s pretty impractical and you don’t see a lot of real life historical examples. The only time it is practical is when one blade is shorter, like dagger length. However, Hollywood likes to show us people wielding same length swords.

Double bladed lightsabers are also kinda lame. Doesn’t stop them and dual wielded from looking cool, I guess

It's probably safe to assume you weren't too fond of this scene then:

 

[Jaguar]

It's probably safe to assume you weren't too fond of this scene then:

I am. He's such a funny fucker.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Dual pistol wielding is also stupid. Any perceived benefit of wielding two is surely going to be outweighed by factors like reduced aim, fewer hands controlling each pistol, recoil, etc

 

[Totenkindly]

That’s what they had Dayne holding in one of the flashbacks on the tv show. Two actual longswords.

I know they were trying to make him look badass, but i just thought that whole bit was dumb and just another step away from brutal realism.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I know they were trying to make him look badass, but i just thought that whole bit was dumb and just another step away from brutal realism.

In the book his sword was supposed to be meteoric iron (the house sigil of House Dayne is a meteor), and there's hints he might have been descended from the Last Hero that stopped the Others the first time.

I thought the meteoric iron was an interesting choice because of real world archaeology and how in the bronze age, iron was a super rare, expensive metal (that you usually had to get from meteors, which must have given it extra mythic significance). So iron daggers and such were reserved for high status individuals like royalty. King Tut had an iron dagger, for instance. Maybe that was how he got so funky.

 

[Population: 1]

I’m tired of the trope or gimmick of people wielding two swords. Game of Thrones even changed Arthur Dayne from wielding a greatsword to dual longswords. It’s pretty impractical and you don’t see a lot of real life historical examples. The only time it is practical is when one blade is shorter, like dagger length. However, Hollywood likes to show us people wielding same length swords.

Double bladed lightsabers are also kinda lame. Doesn’t stop them and dual wielded from looking cool, I guess

The first time I remember someone employing a dual wielding style in entertainment was the character Nasir, the assassin/ranger of few words from Robin Of Sherwood (Robin Hood in the US) back in the 80’s. He wielded two shorter curved blades. Besides that it didn’t seem to become trendy outside of D&D circles until much later.

Yes it’s Mark Ryan from Black Sails.

 

[Lexicon]

I just watched the first 2 Bill & Ted movies back to back. Haven’t watched them in yrs. Plan to see the newest one tomorrow night.

I’m honestly surprised I haven’t heard/seen more recent complaints about the repeated use of the word, ‘fags’ in those movies, given our more conscious social climate these days.

It doesn’t bother me. I mean, it’s obviously not an ok thing to say, but it’s dated. I get that it was socially acceptable back then for adolescent guys to pick on one another in this way. Doesn’t make it okay, but it doesn’t take away from the fun of the film, overall. But then, I’m not part of that marginalized group, so I also know that my opinion on the matter isn’t necessarily as relevant, which is also okay.


Perhaps the world just loves Keanu Reeves so universally that they could forgive Bill for calling the devil a fag at one point. << That’s my random movie thought. The rest is mainly just for context.

 

[Totenkindly]

I just watched the first 2 Bill & Ted movies back to back. Haven’t watched them in yrs. Plan to see the newest one tomorrow night.

I’m honestly surprised I haven’t heard/seen more recent complaints about the repeated use of the word, ‘fags’ in those movies, given our more conscious social climate these days.

It doesn’t bother me. I mean, it’s obviously not an ok thing to say, but it’s dated. I get that it was socially acceptable back then for adolescent guys to pick on one another in this way. Doesn’t make it okay, but it doesn’t take away from the fun of the film, overall. But then, I’m not part of that marginalized group, so I also know that my opinion on the matter isn’t necessarily as relevant, which is also okay.


Perhaps the world just loves Keanu Reeves so universally that they could forgive Bill for calling the devil a fag at one point. << That’s my random movie thought. The rest is mainly just for context.

I suppose I should actually watch them all. I might be one of the last people my age who never watched any of the Bill & Ted films. [I finally watched The Neverending Story for the first time, just a few weeks ago, similarly.]

(Admission: I'm not really a Keanu fan. He seems like a great human being, that's not in doubt; but his acting is typically subpar unless it's kinetic acting like in John Wick. The only film I liked him in besides the John Wick stuff and MAYBE the first Matrix film was Parenthood, where he was essentially playing himself.)

It's always such a war over language, I know just from being a writer. You have the idealized world and then you have the actual world, and people get into arguments over what should be allowed. I tend to give some leeway in there and cater to the overall tone and gist of a film rather than just focusing on the language -- like, is it just depicting a realistic view of people with warts and all, or is it promoting an actual viewpoint that is destructive and slanderous?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I’m tired of the trope or gimmick of people wielding two swords. Game of Thrones even changed Arthur Dayne from wielding a greatsword to dual longswords. It’s pretty impractical and you don’t see a lot of real life historical examples. The only time it is practical is when one blade is shorter, like dagger length. However, Hollywood likes to show us people wielding same length swords.

Double bladed lightsabers are also kinda lame. Doesn’t stop them and dual wielded from looking cool, I guess

Don't forget, the mighty Ator needs two swords to fight. What a loser.

 

[Lexicon]

I suppose I should actually watch them all. I might be one of the last people my age who never watched any of the Bill & Ted films. [I finally watched The Neverending Story for the first time, just a few weeks ago, similarly.]

Yeah, I was super surprised you hadn’t seen The Neverending Story til recently. I think these old movies tend to hit you differently in adulthood. Little less fun, perhaps. My INTP best friend hadn’t seen The Goonies until she was in her 20s, & she never got excited about it the way the rest of our generation did.

If you watch the Bill & Ted films, be prepared for a lot of cheese.

(Admission: I'm not really a Keanu fan. He seems like a great human being, that's not in doubt; but his acting is typically subpar unless it's kinetic acting like in John Wick. The only film I liked him in besides the John Wick stuff and MAYBE the first Matrix film was Parenthood, where he was essentially playing himself.)

Yeah, I don’t like or dislike him one way or the other— but have always heard he’s a super nice/great person. His acting is good, but not remarkable I’ve never seen The Matrix or Parenthood, but he did well in John Wick.

It's always such a war over language, I know just from being a writer. You have the idealized world and then you have the actual world, and people get into arguments over what should be allowed. I tend to give some leeway in there and cater to the overall tone and gist of a film rather than just focusing on the language -- like, is it just depicting a realistic view of people with warts and all, or is it promoting an actual viewpoint that is destructive and slanderous?

Well said. This is essentially what I try to determine when I watch movies. Case by case basis. Can’t always apply social rules with a broad brush when it comes to storytelling.

 

[Totenkindly]

Yeah, I was super surprised you hadn’t seen The Neverending Story til recently. I think these old movies tend to hit you differently in adulthood. Little less fun, perhaps. My INTP best friend hadn’t seen The Goonies until she was in her 20s, & she never got excited about it the way the rest of our generation did.

I just bought in on 4K (it released last week), it's a lovely transfer of the film considering the issues with some 80's releases, everything feels more vibrant and cleaned up and detailed.

I didn't see it in the theater, but I did see it on rental when it came out (on VHS obviously). It was the day after I got my wisdom teeth out, I was staying at a friend's, and we were eating ice cream (to help my aching teeth) and I kept laughing so hard I would start to cry from the pain of laughing due to my teeth -- and then my friend's mom would start laughing at me and my sad predicament. (Now that I think about it, she reminded me of Anne Ramsey a bit in demeanor, which is ironic. Anne Ramsey is so hilarious in this film, like the mother from hell; she must have been a hoot in real life, she was canny enough to lean into this role so well.)

Oh, and Joe Pantoliano has hair here. Kind of.

It's not the perfect film, but there's just something about it I resonate with regardless, it does feel very representative of Gen X. Parents are off doing their own thing, kids are very aware but also left pretty much up to their own devices and are creating their own world and contributing in the way that they can even if they don't feel understood by their parents. And so on. It's also kind of wild west, there's stuff that the PC police wouldn't be happy with nowadays but was just a factor of our lives then.

And I think it was Josh Brolin's first film?

Yeah, I don’t like or dislike him one way or the other— but have always heard he’s a super nice/great person. His acting is good, but not remarkable I’ve never seen The Matrix or Parenthood, but he did well in John Wick.

hahaha, I guess I can say it is impressive you managed to dodge the Matrix for so long. (See Joe Pantoliano above, that's the connecting point between Goonies and Matrix.)

Parenthood is a sweet film, Dianne Wiest I think got an Oscar nom out of it -- but it also features a very young Joaquin Phoenix. I think he was still going by Leaf at the time.

 

[Totenkindly]

For whatever reason, the film didn't do as much for me, but I know there are some fans here, so...
Scream Factory: They Live 4K Blu-ray Collector's Edition Detailed

Also, a nice 4k Total Recall (Vehoeven) release on December 8:
Total Recall 4K Blu-ray Release Date December 8, 2020 (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)

 

[Black Sun]

I just remembered Splice and how funny it is to see how uncomfortable that movie makes people. One of the characters kept making decisions that were so ridiculous throughout everything and that dragged down the movie a lot. I still wonder how a second movie would handle the hybrid baby situation.

 

[Totenkindly]

So I think that the Tenet experiment has shown that people are not ready to attend theaters yet (in the USA), although there are also some restrictions also in play. (Has NY even opened its theaters yet? I don't think so? I mean, right there, you lost NYC on opening weekend.)

'''Tenet''' tallies $20.2M as Americans step back into theaters

Tenet should have opened to at least $70 million in normal times in the USA over a holiday weekend. I think ultimately it made around $30 million. They probably needed $500 million [world wide] to break even, although they are doing better overseas. They put all their eggs in this basket financially, expecting a windfall... and then pushed a theater opening when the industry was not ready to have an opening. I am sure they will do a re-release if the USA improves its theater conditions under COVID, but it won't be nearly as good due to word of mouth that the film simply is not as great as touted.

I'm a little irked with the comparisons to "The Prestige," which is one of my favorite movies I have ever seen and far more impeccably crafted. As far as audience scores, you cannot actually compare the two because the audience is very different. The "B" rating for "The Prestige" from general audiences is actually to be expected because it's a very niche film -- topically, and in terms of approach (it's a psychological drama with a convoluted time line, more historical in setting, personal targeted performances, a thinking person's film, etc.)... it would have never been a general audience film or even a group decided to go based on broad topical manner. This is very unlike TENET, which was promoted as a huge general audience film more in line with Inception (they hoped) in terms of audience cross-section and the mass market appeal. To summarize, I'm not surprised by a B rating from audiences because of the film's complexity and niche spot, regardless of quality; but TENET was so popularized and generalized that a B rating is more indicative of quality than the targeting of the audience.

[Note: I'm still surprised Inception was as big as it became and crossing the typical audience boundaries to become mass-market. But it's like "Nolan" diffused to be fuzzy enough that general audiences of all kinds could follow it. And that is what TENET tries to be, but it's not as coherent, is more confusing, and has less heart/soul to identify with. The lead is written to be particularly "cool" in approach, versus providing a palpable humanity like Cobb did in terms with his love for his wife and his children, which drives Inception's entire plot.]

Anyway I think they should have held off longer on TENET and just ate 2020 losses, now they went out early and the film now has lost potential value.